In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
In economics, inflation refers to a general progressive increase in prices of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money. The opposite of inflation is deflation, a sustained decrease in the general price level of goods and services. The common measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualised percentage change in a general price index.
In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0%. Inflation reduces the value of currency over time, but sudden deflation increases it. This allows more goods and services to be bought than before with the same amount of currency. Deflation is distinct from disinflation, a slow-down in the inflation rate, i.e. when inflation declines to a lower rate but is still positive.
Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely structural and frictional, may remain. For instance, workers who are "between jobs" for short periods of time as they search for better employment are not counted against full employment, as such unemployment is frictional rather than cyclical. An economy with full employment might also have unemployment or underemployment where part-time workers cannot find jobs appropriate to their skill level, as such unemployment is considered structural rather than cyclical. Full employment marks the point past which expansionary fiscal and/or monetary policy cannot reduce unemployment any further without causing inflation.
New Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomics that strives to provide microeconomic foundations for Keynesian economics. It developed partly as a response to criticisms of Keynesian macroeconomics by adherents of new classical macroeconomics.
The Phillips curve is a single-equation economic model, named after William Phillips, hypothesizing an inverse relationship between rates of unemployment and corresponding rates of rises in wages that result within an economy. Stated simply, decreased unemployment, in an economy will correlate with higher rates of wage rises. Phillips did not himself state there was any relationship between employment and inflation; this notion was a trivial deduction from his statistical findings. Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow made the connection explicit and subsequently Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps put the theoretical structure in place. In so doing, Friedman was to successfully predict the imminent collapse of Phillips' a-theoretic correlation.
The organic composition of capital (OCC) is a concept created by Karl Marx in his theory of capitalism, which was simultaneously his critique of the political economy of his time. It is derived from his more basic concepts of 'value composition of capital' and 'technical composition of capital'. Marx defines the organic composition of capital as "the value-composition of capital, in so far as it is determined by its technical composition and mirrors the changes of the latter". The 'technical composition of capital' measures the relation between the elements of constant capital and variable capital. It is 'technical' because no valuation is here involved. In contrast, the 'value composition of capital' is the ratio between the value of the elements of constant capital involved in production and the value of the labor. Marx found that the special concept of 'organic composition of capital' was sometimes useful in analysis, since it assumes that the relative values of all the elements of capital are constant.
Built-in inflation is a type of inflation that results from past events and persists in the present.
Incomes policies in economics are economy-wide wage and price controls, most commonly instituted as a response to inflation, and usually seeking to establish wages and prices below free market level.
Real wages are wages adjusted for inflation, or, equivalently, wages in terms of the amount of goods and services that can be bought. This term is used in contrast to nominal wages or unadjusted wages.
Indexation is a technique to adjust income payments by means of a price index, in order to maintain the purchasing power of the public after inflation, while deindexation is the unwinding of indexation.
The dual-sector model is a model in development economics. It is commonly known as the Lewis model after its inventor W. Arthur Lewis. It explains the growth of a developing economy in terms of a labour transition between two sectors, the capitalist sector and the subsistence sector.
The United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a set of consumer price indices calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). To be precise, the BLS routinely computes many different CPIs that are used for different purposes. Each is a time series measure of the price of consumer goods and services. The BLS publishes the CPI monthly.
Low-cost country sourcing (LCCS) is procurement strategy in which a company sources materials from countries with lower labour and production costs in order to cut operating expenses. LCCS falls under a broad category of procurement efforts called global sourcing.
The Prices and Incomes Accord was an agreement between the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating in 1983. Employers were not party to the Accord. Unions agreed to restrict wage demands and the government pledged to minimise inflation. The government was also to act on the social wage. At its broadest this concept included increased spending on education as well as welfare.
The AD–AS or aggregate demand–aggregate supply model is a macroeconomic model that explains price level and output through the relationship of aggregate demand (AD) and aggregate supply (AS).
The Rehn–Meidner model is an economic and wage policy model developed in 1951 by two economists at the research department of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner. The four main goals to be achieved were:
In macroeconomics, rigidities are real prices and wages that fail to adjust to the level indicated by equilibrium or if something holds one price or wage fixed to a relative value of another. Real rigidities can be distinguished from nominal rigidities, rigidities that do not adjust because prices can be sticky and fail to change value even as the underlying factors that determine prices fluctuate. Real rigidities, along with nominal, are a key part of new Keynesian economics. Economic models with real rigidities lead to nominal shocks having a large impact on the economy.
In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and labour power. The concept originated in Ricardian socialism, with the term "surplus value" itself being coined by William Thompson in 1824; however, it was not consistently distinguished from the related concepts of surplus labor and surplus product. The concept was subsequently developed and popularized by Karl Marx. Marx's formulation is the standard sense and the primary basis for further developments, though how much of Marx's concept is original and distinct from the Ricardian concept is disputed. Marx's term is the German word "Mehrwert", which simply means value added, and is cognate to English "more worth".
A distributional effect is the effect of the redistribution of the final gains and costs derived from the direct gains and cost allocations of a project. A project has a direct-profit redistribution effect and a direct-cost redistribution effect. But whether it is profit or cost, the redistribution effect can be expressed as a benefit to a group of people or department or region, and the loss to another party. In theory, the indirect profit and indirect costs can also be derived from the redistribution effect, and valued.
